


we fought the law, but the law won

by nateheywood



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Arguing, Established Relationship, Fights, Fluff, Kidnapping, Minor Injuries, Multi, Polyamory, Working things out, basically len gets kidnapped and sara and mick fight about it, it gets a little angsty but it's fine you guys, it's fine, sara is best friends with john and zari and it shows, somehow len is the responsible one, which means he just finds a way to avoid the fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 21:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nateheywood/pseuds/nateheywood
Summary: Mick and Len have trouble following orders, and Sara's just about had it with the two of them. It gets out of hand when Len gets kidnapped, having blatantly ignored Sara's orders. Sara and Mick, reluctant to be angry with their recently resurrected lover, have trouble deciding who's fault it is - Mick's, or Sara's?





	we fought the law, but the law won

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SophiaCatherine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/gifts).

> I had entirely too much fun with this - I hadn't ever thought of all three of them in a romantic light before.
> 
> Prompt: Sara gives the orders on the Waverider. She just wishes certain people *followed* those orders. She loves her boys, but she doesn't love when they don't listen to her - and they fail to listen to her a lot. Extra points for arguing leading to angst, or someone getting injured when one of them fails to follow orders, but please eventual happy ending. But you can take it in a lighter/funny direction if you prefer. Prefer no smut but it's okay if it ends up going there!
> 
> I really hope you like it, @sophiainspace!

The mission (Aphrodite running rampant in Puritan England) is a success (sent back to Olympus by time courier), but it’s probably one of the most difficult missions Sara has had to work as captain.

And it’s partly because of the two sitting in front of her.

Len and Mick don’t seem entirely clueless to the reason why she’s got them sitting around the dining table at midnight (or at least, what passes for it on the ship), so she doesn’t feel  _ as _ guilty when she sets down her whiskey and leans forward to begin what will inevitably be a conversation worse than pulling teeth.

She sucks in a breath. “We need to talk about the mission.”

“Do we?” Mick says, raising his eyebrows. Len just looks at her. She rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, we do. You guys  _ blatantly  _ disobeyed my orders out there--”

“So did the weasel, and I don’t see  _ him _ sitting at the table.”

Sara presses her lips together at the interruption. “I’ll talk to John later. And the rest of the team got their talking to earlier--”

“Which we were present for,” Len says. He tilts his head. “So why are  _ we _ getting a private scolding?”

Sara leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “Because our relationship is different. And I’m worried you two think you have certain,” she tilts her head at the table, “priviledges because of it.”

“Or maybe,” Mick says, leaning forward. “We just don’t like following orders.”

“That’s still a problem,” Sara says.

Len shrugs, and Sara’s anger sparks. 

“So orders are pointless unless you’re the one giving them out, huh?” she snaps, and Len glares.

“Maybe if you would make a  _ plan _ \--”

“Because plans work out so well with this team,” Sara interrupts, and Len’s lips tighten. Good. Anything is better than the “I’m above it all” attitude Len tends to adopt during arguments - that only tends to rile Mick and Sara up even more and usually ends in them all sleeping in separate rooms for the night.

“Maybe they would if they weren’t  _ half-baked, _ ” Len says sharply. Sara bristles.

“Those ‘half-baked plans’ have gotten us out of more than one job-gone-wrong, Leonard Snart, so don’t start--”

“Not like we’re gonna follow them anyway, Boss,” Mick says, smiling in a way that screams ‘and there’s no changing that’. He stands up and tips his beer at them both. “So arguing? Is pointless.” He turns on his heel and starts heading towards the hallway, and Sara stands up in a futile attempt to stop him.

“ _ Mick, _ ” she starts, but he’s already disappeared into the dark corridor. “ _ Damn  _ it.” She plunks herself down into her chair and looks at Len, who hasn’t moved. He looks vaguely guilty.

“Well,” he says after a second, swinging his legs off of the edge of the table and standing up. He offers a hand to Sara. “That was entirely expected.”

She doesn’t take it, instead electing to raise an eyebrow and look at him suspiciously. “Was it.” 

“Mick’s never taken kindly to orders, even mine,” Len drawls, and he wiggles his fingers. “Now. What say you to a couple of beers before we turn in for the night?”

“And you do?” she asks, raising her eyebrows and glancing at his hand. “Take kindly to orders?” Len rolls his lips between his teeth and turns his head to look at the far wall. He pulls his hand down back to his side.

“No,” he says, after a long pause. “ _ But, _ I’ve never tried.”

It’s an apology. Sara can’t believe she’s hearing it. “Really,” she asks, tone flat with disbelief. “Just like that?”

He looks at her again, a smirk teasing his face. “No promises.” He offers his hand again. “Discuss it later?” The ‘ _ with Mick’  _ goes unsaid.

She gives him a look, but she slaps her hand into his. “It is our specialty,” she says wryly as he pulls her to her feet. He makes sure to pull her close, so they’re nearly nose to nose. Or, nose to chin. Same difference. 

He hums in agreement, shrugging his shoulders, and she sighs as she moves past him to the materializer.

“You’re lucky I wasn’t actually angry,” she says.

“It certainly  _ seemed _ like it, for a moment.”

“Don’t push it,” she warns, whirling around to point a finger at him. He smirks, and she feels a rush of affection for him. She’s a little irritated that he’s managed to get rid of her anger so quickly, but mostly, she’s grateful. She’d rather not go to bed angry - although that might not be the case once she sees Mick.

Because it still bothers her. No apologies. No regret. No shame. Seemingly, no respect. It hurts. She can feel a little bubble of resentment beginning in her chest, and she doesn’t want it there. But it’s growing.

Do they really not respect her?

Do they really think their relationship gets them a free pass?

-

“Oo, maybe,” Zari says, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. She’s speaking around a powdered donut. “Maybe they think they have, like, the same authority as you because of it.”

Sara crinkles her eyebrows. “No,” she says, dismissive, but she hits the punching bag in front of her a little harder. “They know better.”

“They’re not acting like it,” Zari says.

Sara hits the bag a few more times to finish off her set, and then steadies the bag. She looks over at Zari, at her perch on three stacked crates. “I know,” she allows. “But I can’t deny the fact that they’d probably be just as disobedient even without the whole relationship thing.”

Zari shrugs as if to say “fair enough” and shoves another donut into her mouth. 

Sara starts taking her gloves off. “I just don’t know how to make them  _ listen  _ to me.”

Zari is still chewing, so Sara takes the time to drain her water bottle. By the time she’s finished, Zari is as well, licking the excess sugar off of her fingers.

“I’m not sure either,” she says. “I’m not captain. But hey. If it helps? I don’t think it’s a respect thing.”

Sara gives her a look. “I didn’t say I thought it was a respect thing.” Zari gives her look back, and Sara holds her gaze for a moment before deflating with a sigh. “Maybe it is,” she mutters, looking at the floor. She then turns her eyes to the ceiling. “I don’t know. All I know is that it just…”

Zari furrows her brow slightly, sympathetic. “Hurts?”

Sara looks at her for a moment. This is weird. She’s captain - Zari isn’t. “Maybe. Listen, Z, you don’t need to be hearing me whine. I’m captain, I don’t need--”

“Someone to talk to that isn’t your boyfriend?” Zari says lightly, and Sara glares at her. She holds her hands up in defense, sliding off of the crates. She has powdered sugar streaked across her black jeans. “Listen. I’m not saying I know more than you. But sometimes you just need a listening ear.”

“Z,” Sara starts, but Zari continues over her.

“Before you shut me out, just let me say: I don’t think it has anything to do with you. I think they’re just used to operating alone. You said they were married before you guys all met, right?”

_ Yeah, and maybe that’s the problem. _

“Yeah,” Sara mutters, looking over at the punching bag. She’s always been - it’s a little daunting, entering a relationship with two people who’ve known each other for most of their lives. Two people that have already been  _ married  _ for most of their lives. They’ve made it through any awkward patches (at least, about that), but sometimes.... “Well,” she says, louder this time, as if to scare away that train of thought. She draws herself up to look Zari in the eyes. “They’re on a team now. They’ve  _ been  _ on a team for four years. It’s high time they get their acts together.”

“Hell yeah,” Zari says, smiling. “Just - when you bring it up with them,  _ please _ don’t do it in the kitchen.”

Sara rolls her eyes, doing her best to hold back a grin. “I won’t start a fight where you can see it. We’re not John and Ray.”

“Yeah,” Zari says, rolling her lips between her teeth. “You’re worse.”

Sara smirks. “Fine. How’s this?” She holds up a pinky, raising an eyebrow. Zari smiles, and hooks her pinky around Sara’s. 

“Wow,” Zari says, raising her eyebrows. “I think I might actually believe you.”

-

“Looks like we’ve got a bogeyman on our hands,” John announces, glancing at the collage of pictures and newspaper clippings that Gideon’s compiled for them. “Kidnaps children and the like for misbehavin’ and punishes ‘em.”

“Oh,” Ray says. “So they don’t...?”

“Most never make it out alive, love,” John says, squeezing Ray’s wrist briefly in comfort. It’s strangely cute, for John. “Sorry to say.”

“One did, though,” Sara says, leaning on the dash. “Which is the only reason we know this isn’t just your run of the mill serial killer.”

“Never thought I’d hear ‘run of the mill’ applied to serial killers,” Charlie says, and Sara shrugs.

“Compared to what we’ve seen? They are. Now, the police report says that the kid saw a large man in black with claws six inches long, and that he nabbed him in a sack with a couple of other kids. He escaped when they all got dumped out.”

“So he might know where it’s keeping the other kids,” Len says, and Sara points at him. 

“Exactly. So we go in, talk to the kid, get the info out of him, find the fugitive--”

“And burn the bastard,” Mick finishes.

“So,” Sara says, looking at all six of them. “Anything we need to know before we head out?”

“The bogey mainly focuses on children,” John says, sticking his hands into his fuzzy robe pockets. They’re all in their pajamas - Gideon hadn’t bothered to wait for Sara to wake up, so she’d decided to extend the courtesy to the rest of the team. “So we shouldn’t have to worry about anything going awry unless we get in the way of the kids.”

“Which we will be doing,” Zari says. “Immediately.”

John points at her. “Right. I’ll work on finding a spell, then - I’ve never actually run into one of these before.”

“Great,” Sara says dryly. Going into missions even blinder than usual wasn’t exactly on her wish list. “John will work on the spell, and the rest of us can go and talk to the kid and maybe some others in the neighborhood.”

“A helper might be nice,” John says far too lightly. He is looking pointedly at Ray, who is in the process of raising his hand to volunteer.

_ Nope.  _ “Zari! You help John look for something useful. The rest of us,” she motions to herself and the other four, “will go talk to Joseph Sanders.”

Ray deflates. Whatever. She’ll take an unhappy Ray over a delayed (much needed) spell any day.

“Alright!” she says, turning on her heel and walking towards the costume room. “Let’s go get our boogie on!”

-

Because the Legends are physically incapable of following even a single set goal, they never even make it to Joseph Sanders’ front yard. 

Everything starts out fine, but Sara has absolutely no trust in that. They arrive discreetly ( _ astonishing!) _ and land a distance from the settlement, not wanting to risk disturbing the atmosphere too much, even with the cloaking device on. They head towards the town from there, looking as casual as seven adults in varying states of costume can.

“Would it kill you to put on a costume just once?” Zari asks John, who’d managed to find a spell quickly enough to join them.

“You know, it just might,” John says, smiling without showing his teeth. Zari rolls her eyes. He pops a cigarette in his mouth, and Sara snatches it out immediately.

“Too modern,” she tells his frown, stuffing it into the front of her dress. “You’re lucky I don’t wrangle you into a costume as is.”

John makes a face, and Sara narrows her eyes at him, clenching her jaw. Maybe she  _ should _ make him change, before they get any closer. He’s been toeing the line ever since he came aboard, and she has enough trouble with Mick and Len as--

“Do you think this helped inspire the Grimm brothers?” Ray asks. Sara blinks, anger draining away and leaving her suddenly tired. Jesus. Maybe she should talk to Mick and Len sooner rather than later, if she’s going to start taking it out on the rest of the team. That isn’t acceptable (not anymore).

“No,” she says, “because this isn’t supposed to be here.”

“Oh!” Ray says. “You’re right. Besides, it’s not like the Grimm brothers really made anything up anyways.”

“Grimm brothers?” Zari asks, from the back.

“Rapunzel, right?” Mick says, eyes straight ahead. “All that fairy tale crap.”

“Actually,” Ray says, “The Grimm brothers didn’t write that one. It was actually this guy named Friedrich Schulz.” He says the name with what he clearly thinks is an accurate German accent, and Sara rolls her eyes fondly. “What the brothers  _ did  _ do was make some--”

“Shut up,” Len says suddenly from the front, putting up a hand. Ray’s mouth snaps closed as they all screech to a halt, nearly running into each other. Sara makes her way to Len’s side, and he points to the woods at the far end of the little cluster of houses they’d been headed towards. There’s a group of around five children playing near the treeline. “Something’s off.”

Sara turns to look at John, who licks his lips, looking thoughtful. “He’s right,” he says, looking back at her. Charlie nods thoughtfully from behind him. “Somethin’ magical just arrived.”

They look at each other, and look at the kids. 

“Should we run?” Ray asks.

Sara takes a brief second debating on whether or not they should be frightening the kids before the bogey even gets there. Goosebumps suddenly raise on her arms, chilling her. They scream  _ run away. _

“Yes,” she orders, and they all start sprinting towards the kids, heavy dresses and bonnets be damned.

They get there about five seconds before the bogeyman does, and Sara immediately whips out her baton from where she’s hidden it in her dress. She turns to look at John, who’s summoned flames to engulf his hands. It reminds her briefly, painfully, of Firestorm.

“Just start the spell!” she yells over the children’s screaming. “We’ll cover you!”

John nods and drops to his knees, flames extinguishing. “Keep ‘im exposed,” he tells her, taking out ingredients and a small black PEZ dispenser topped with a top hat. She doesn’t ask. “Spell’s hard to control, and if it hits one of ya, you’ll be knocked back into the dream world as well.”

“Got it,” she says, and she turns back to the edge of the woods, ready to defend the children for as long as it takes them to scramble back into their houses. “Hear that, team?”

“Ready to face this bastard?” Len calls to her from the other side of Mick, goggles on. “Gonna be hard not to knock his face in!”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” she calls back, grinning, and he’s just opening his mouth to respond when suddenly the children drop to the ground, lifeless.

The silence is deafening.

“What the--?” Zari starts, and John pipes up from his place on the ground behind them.

“He’s put them to sleep!” he says, drawing in the dirt frantically. “It’s how he nabs ‘em - he must be close to be startin’ that already.”

Sara sees something shift in the trees. Her heart starts pounding despite herself. She tightens her grip on her baton. She’s sure she’s fought worse than a nightmare creature. A demon is worse than that, right?

The whine of Ray and Len’s guns charging up echoes through the air, and Sara only has a split second to see a shadow dart out from the woods before Ray’s blaster explodes around it, blinding her. It leaves rubble and no sign of life or shadow. 

A moment of shocked silence passes.

“Is that it?” Charlie asks in disbelief, and Sara tenses in anticipation.

“I doubt it,” Zari says dryly, and that’s when what seems like hundreds of shadow men explode out of the forest. Sara leaps to meet them, and she feels a rush of relief when her baton connects with something solid. She doesn’t want to imagine trying to fight something incorporeal.

She doesn’t know how much time has passed before John shouts again. Blasters and yells and shadow-screams are all blurring together, but John’s accent cuts through it all.

“I’ve almost got it! Just stay away from ‘im!”

Almost collectively, they all look around to see ‘him’. Sara almost regrets it.

He’s  _ tall,  _ at least eight feet, and most of it is leg. His limbs are spindly, unnaturally so, and he’s donned in a suit too baggy for his emaciated frame. His face is mostly a wide grin, seemingly permanent, and his eyes aren’t there, instead replaced by a smooth expanse of grey skin. His fingers are six inch claws, black and wicked-looking.

He’s right next to one of the children.

“John,” Sara says warningly, turning back to the shadow monster she’d been fighting only to find it racing towards the bogeyman. 

“Almost got it,” John says, seemingly with effort, and out of the corner of her eye she can see sparks flying. It’s uncomfortably silent otherwise, and Len speaks up from behind her.

“He’s going to get that kid,” he snarls, and sure enough, the bogeyman has his claws around one of the little girls, lifting, a burlap sack hanging from his shoulders. “Not on my watch.” Len pushes past Sara to the front of the group, and she suddenly realizes what he’s about to do.

“Len,  _ don’t you dare,”  _ she snaps, but Len just raises his gun.

He shoots before she can snatch it out of his hands, and it goes straight through the bogey, like John said their weapons would. But Len hadn’t been aiming to kill. He’d been aiming to distract.

It works.

The bogeyman turns to look at them. Suddenly, he’s got Len by the neck, too fast for Sara’s eyes to process. She doesn’t have time to react, because several things happen in quick succession:

Mick starts forwards, and Sara tells him to stay back. He doesn’t listen.

Constantine fires his spell.

Sara grabs the back of Mick’s collar and yanks him out of the way, straining her shoulder with the effort.

John’s spell goes astray in a last ditch effort to avoid Mick. It does the job, but it also misses the monster.

The bogeyman flickers away. 

He takes Len with him.

All they can do for a long, long time is just stare at the spot they’d been in, shocked numb, before the children start to stir, groaning and crying.

Sara’s numbness starts to fade away, replaced by worry, distress, and fear. And anger. Lots of anger.

“Bollocks,” John says, and isn’t  _ that  _ the understatement of the century. Sara turns around, ready to snap at him, but his expression makes her falter. He looks horrified. She almost moves towards him, but Ray gets there first, kneeling down to talk to him. A boyfriend’s better than a captain, anyway.

She takes a deep breath and very pointedly does not look at Mick when she gives her next orders, afraid of the anger threatening to boil over. “Alright,” she says. “Let’s get these kids back home. We need to discuss our next move.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Mick says, sarcasm oozing off of every word. He marches past her, heading straight towards the ship and blatantly ignoring her instructions. She clenches her jaw and tears her eyes away from his retreating back. She’ll deal with it later. She instead looks at Zari, who’s not-watching them with an expression that says ‘yikes’, Charlie, who definitely  _ is  _ watching them, and Ray and John, who are still kneeling in the grass.

“Well?” Sara says, with maybe a touch too much anger. “Make a move on!”

-

Sara is  _ angry. _

She’s also hurt, and worried, and scared, but all she wants to focus on is her anger and she allows herself the indulgence. She’s too tired to be captain, too afraid for Len to be responsible. She can’t be who the team leans on right now, not when it’s  _ her lover  _ out there in the hands of a creature made of nightmares.

Sara, as captain, has been trying to give her lectures and arguments in a one-on-one setting in order to respect everyone’s privacy. This flies out the window as soon as she spots Mick waiting for them on the deck, beer bottle in hand and another on the ground beside him, messing around on the screen.

“What the  _ hell  _ were you thinking out there?” she snaps, marching up to him. He straightens from his position bent over the dash to meet her glare, fist clenching by his side. “You could have gotten yourself hurt, or  _ Len  _ hurt--”

“You’re one to talk,” Mick says lowly, and Sara raises her eyebrows.

“ _ Excuse me? _ ”

“You abandoned him out there!” he roars suddenly, and even though Sara doesn’t startle, she can practically feel everyone behind her do so. “You held me back and now--”

“I did what I  _ had  _ to,” she fires back. “And it might have been fine if you hadn’t decided to disobey my orders and knock John off of his aim--”

“He wasn’t fast enough,” Mick growls. “I had to do something.”

“You  _ didn’t _ ,” Sara stresses. “I--”

“You clearly have no problem with abandoning your team,” Mick says. He scowls, eyes wide in the way that signals that he’s truly angry. “I  _ do _ .”

“What are you saying?” Sara asks, a sinking feeling in her gut. He wouldn’t. Not that.

“I’m saying that this isn’t the first time you’ve abandoned Lenny,” Mick growls. 

_ He would. _

Sara feels it like a punch to the gut. “This isn’t the same thing. We’re going to work on a rescue plan--”

“Isn’t it, though?” Mick says loudly. “Maybe if you hadn’t abandoned him back then, it wouldn’t have--”

“I’m sorry,” Sara forces out. “I didn’t realize  _ I _ was the one who made him choose life without his husband or no life at all.” She takes a step closer. “And I didn’t realize that  _ I _ was the one who made that choice for him.”

Silence falls, heavy and uncomfortable. Mick’s face is blank and stony, unreadable.

It’s a victory, but not at all a pleasant one.

Mick turns and leaves, and makes it clear that no one should follow when he loudly orders Gideon to lock his doors once he gets there. She’d been successful in hurting him back, in throwing the knife back at him, but she doesn’t feel satisfied like she might have a few years ago.

Guilt churns in Sara’s stomach. She could override his orders and go after him.

She doesn’t want to, though.

She’s so  _ tired  _ of being the responsible one. She’s hurt, too - and she hadn’t been the one to bring it up, to bring  _ that  _ up in a petty attempt to hurt her opponent. She shouldn’t have to be the one to extend the olive branch, to be the first to try and mend things.

Mick can sit and stew in his feelings. It’s certainly what Sara wants to do.

“So,” Ray says awkwardly, drawing out the ‘o’, and Sara’s reminded of why, exactly, she can’t do that. She shuts her eyes in an attempt to calm herself down, not turning away from where Mick went. “What’s the plan now, Captain?”

“The plan,” Sara says after a moment. “Is to get to Len as soon as possible. John?” She whirls around to look at him, and he raises an eyebrow. “I need you and Zari to start looking for a location spell for Len - that should also give us the location of the fugitive. Charlie, Ray, and--” she cuts herself off before she can say ‘Mick’, a fresh bubble of anger and hurt welling up in her throat. “Change of plans. Zari? You go with Ray and Charlie and keep an eye on those kids. I’ll help John with the spells.”

She needs to be there, looking for the solution. Not sitting around waiting for it to happen.

Nobody complains about being on the ‘b-team’, at least, and they all scatter to their respective duties without even a snarky one-liner. It seems as though Sara and Mick’s argument has set a mood. She can’t say she’s upset about it - she doesn’t think she can take Zari’s sarcasm or Ray’s cheer right now.

“Alright, love,” John says, clapping her on the shoulder as he moves past her to the library. “Let’s get crackin’ at those books, eh?”

She follows him into the library and takes the book he hands her, ready to start scouring for anything mentioning “location” or “bogeyman”, but she finds herself reading the same first paragraph over and over, Mick’s briefly hurt expression flashing through her mind, the argument rehashing itself again and again.

The sound of a book slamming shut jolts her out of her thoughts, and she looks over to find John raising an eyebrow at her. 

“Haven’t read in a while, have you?” he jokes, but his face falls into a more serious expression when she just glares at him. “Are you alright?” he asks quietly. Suddenly, there’s a lump in her throat.

“I’m fine,” she says, forcing it down. “Let’s just keep looking.” She motions towards the rest of the books strewn across the table, and John looks a little relieved to have avoided a conversation about Sara’s feelings. Sara can relate.

“Alright, then, love,” he says, voice still soft. “Now, do you think you can handle that there tome or--”

“What should I do?” Sara blurts out. “About Mick, I mean.”

John stares at her. “I’m flattered,” he says after a moment, “but I’m not so sure I’m the right man to ask.”

“But you’re the one who’s here,” Sara sighs, and she runs a hand through her hair. “Nevermind. Let’s just get back to work.”

She bends over her book, but she doesn’t get through the first sentence before John starts talking.

“You know,” he says, getting down on his elbows to look her in the face, “you  _ could _ go talk to him.”

“You’re one to talk,” she says maybe a little too sharply, and he frowns, turning his head just slightly.

"Now, now, Sara," he says, warningly. "No need to get angry. I meant no harm by it."

She deflates, sighing. "Sorry, I'm just... they never  _ listen _ , and when something goes wrong..." She trails off, looking anywhere but John's eyes. "Somehow, it's always my fault. And maybe it is."

"But it doesn't mean the past gets to be dragged up in arguments," John tells her.

"It does if it's a fair point," Sara says bitterly. "Maybe I do have a problem with - with abandoning people. With putting the mission above the team."

"Now that's just bollocks," John says derisively, and Sara looks at him in surprise. "Every moment I've seen you have to make that choice, you choose your team." John suddenly looks away from her, lips twisting in the mockery of a smirk. "It's somethin' I wish I'd done more of. Maybe I'd be a little bit happier for it."

Sara is confused for half a second before it clicks: Astra. Desmond. Others, if John's vague references to his past is any clue enough.

"Maybe," she says. "But some of that isn't your fault. Sometimes, you don't have a choice."

John gives half a laugh and shakes his head. “I appreciate the sentiment, love, but…”  _ But I don’t agree,  _ he doesn’t say, but Sara hears it loud and clear. She feels something similar echoing in her own mind about Len, despite John’s insistence that it’s stupid.

“I guess we’re both going to have to just suck it up,” she says bravely. She tries to tell herself that it isn’t just for John’s sake. “And not assume the blame for everything that happens.”

John snorts. “I suppose I have gone and--” he stops suddenly, and then his eyes roll up to the ceiling. “Oh, Jesus, I’m a bloody idiot.”

“What?” Sara asks. He turns towards her, eyes urgent.

“A will-o-the-wisp,” he says quickly. “I used one at that bloody camp when Ray and I -- I need somethin’ of Len’s, preferably somethin’ that burns easy.”

Sara very carefully does not think about how that would be the perfect request for Mick. “I think I might have something.”

-

When they next go out, it’s as a smaller team: Sara, Mick, John, and Charlie. Ray and Zari were ordered to stay in the village and watch over the children, just in case the bogey happened to be gone when the A-Team arrived.

It’s cold and rainy this time, so it takes John a moment to get Len’s sweater to ignite, and Sara can feel the urgency filling up in her chest like a balloon. She swallows down the urge to snap at John to  _ get on with it,  _ instead looking over at Mick without thinking, looking to share in her worry for their partner.

She remembers she’s mad at him about halfway through the motion. Luckily, he’s looking straight ahead, seemingly ignoring the rest of them. 

Instead of relief, she feels anger.

“We don’t have all day, John,” she snaps, and John rolls his eyes as he flicks his lighter for seemingly the hundredth time. 

“I can’t exactly control the weather, Sara,” he snaps back, and she takes a deep breath to calm herself down. Her anger isn’t going to help Len, and neither will making everyone else upset.

John tries a few more times before the sweater suddenly catches, and John blows on it, his breath like gold dust as it lands on the sweater. As he mutters the incantation, Sara notices that he’s favoring the thumb he’d cut to start the spell, and she feels a little guilty for snapping. 

Being angry had been easier when she wasn’t in charge of everyone.

As John finishes his spell, the scrap of sweater burns into a glowing golden sprite instantaneously, and begins to whiz around them almost cheerfully.

“This is gonna lead us to Len,” Mick says doubtfully, and John gives him a knowing grin.

“That it is, big man,” he says, and with a startling quickness he flicks the sprite as it whizzes by. It shoots off into the forest about twenty feet before it suddenly stops, hovering. “Now come on,” John says smugly, heading off into the treeline with his hands in his pockets. “It won’t wait forever.”

Sara immediately follows, soon putting herself ahead of John and willing the wisp to go  _ faster because Len is waiting for them to rescue him. _

The plan is to sneak in during one of the bogey’s hunting trips, nab Len and leave to figure out how to save the rest of the kids. They still haven’t figured out any weapons that could be used against the bogeyman, due to the tiny amount of information on them in John’s spellbooks. Sara is unwilling to risk a fight to test anything, especially with Len MIA, so sneaking in it is.

Unfortunately, even  _ that  _ plan almost immediately goes off the rails.

Their timing is off: instead of getting there after the bogeyman has left, they get there  _ as _ he’s leaving.

Sara can’t even be mad at John for delaying them. If they’d left when she’d wanted to, they would’ve just barged in on feeding time or whatever a bogeyman does when he’s not going kid-shopping.

The will-o-the-wisp disintegrates about fifty feet away from an old, abandoned shack, and Sara puts a hand out to stop the rest of the team from going any further. They’d chosen to go at night, when John said that the bogeyman would normally be haunting dreams, hoping that even out of the dreamworld the monster would feel more comfortable hunting at night. Also, it’s always better to be under the cover of darkness when planning a sneak attack.

“Alright,” Sara whispers, crouching behind a large tree. Everyone else follows suit, and she turns to look at them. “Game plan. Charlie, you tu--”

Something smacks her to the side before she can finish, her breath rushing out of her with a sharp  _ oof  _ as she skids across the ground _ .  _ She manages to slow herself to a stop before she hits another tree, and she has just enough time to see the bogeyman just inches behind where she’d been standing before he’s materializing in front of Charlie, throwing her into a huge fir. 

Sara is running towards him before she can think twice, batons at the ready. She swings wildly, a hit that would normally crack against a man’s skull and knock him unconscious, and it goes straight through the bogey’s head, like she’d swung at smoke. The bogey hits back, and she goes tumbling into the dirt ungracefully. She curses internally. She’s going to be so  _ sore  _ tomorrow.

“John?” she yells as the bogey turns to face her head on. “You brought--”

“The ingredients, yes!” John finishes, sounding frantic from somewhere to her left. Sara doesn’t dare take her eyes off of the bogeyman looming over her.

She tightens her grip on her batons despite their uselessness, and springs up, posture now poised to take a hit. The bogey doesn’t falter, and his mouth is opening wide, wide, wide before fire suddenly blossoms out of his chest.

He  _ screams. _

Sara winces at the sheer piercing volume of the sound, and the bogey whips around, still sizzling slightly.

“You want more where that came from?” Mick shouts, and he’s  _ angry.  _ The bogey starts towards him, and screams again when Mick starts laying on the trigger. The bogey falters. Sara thinks maybe they’ve found something other than John’s spell.

Then, the bogey keeps going forwards.

The fire clearly hurts him, but he seems to be adapting quickly, able to ignore the pain long enough to put out the source of it. Without thinking, Sara throws her baton at his head. It goes straight through.

But Sara hadn’t been aiming to hurt. She’d been aiming to distract.

And it works.

The bogey turns around, still eerily silent, and Sara plants her feet, spreading her arms. “Come and get it!” she shouts, and he does.

But not before Mick shoots him again.

They start playing with him, back and forth, like a game of monkey in the middle. It feels natural, the silent agreement of the plan, the effortless way they’re able to work in sync. It makes Sara grin with adrenaline.

They apparently keep it up long enough for John to build up his spell, because suddenly the bogey is being sucked into a black and purple swirling portal - the portal to dreams, not to Hell. Sara hadn’t even registered his shouting from the background, too involved in keeping the monster at bay.

There’s a sudden silence once the roar of the portal abruptly ends, the only sounds being everyone’s heavy breathing. 

“Woohoo!” Charlie says, pumping her fist in the air. “We got the damn bastard!”   


Sara feels a rush of something similar and smiles - the relief of winning a fight never gets old. She aims her smile at Mick, at how they worked together - and smoothly, at that - but he keeps his gaze stubbornly on Charlie and her mad grin. Sara lets out a sharp breath.

This fight, she is starting to realize, is not something that’s going to go away on its own.

Mick turns sharply towards the house and starts trudging up to it, no explanation needed. Sara is quick to follow him, just barely registering the sounds of the other two scrambling to follow, and they burst into the shack with maybe more dramatics than necessary.

There are kids littering the main room, untied only because they’ve been unconscious for the entirety of their captivity. Mick ignores them in favor of continuing through the house, looking for Len, and although Sara desperately wants to be with him she knows the kids should be her priority. That Len would  _ want  _ the kids to be her priority.

She starts checking them for any visible wounds that would need immediate tending, and she’s just checking the second kid when the sounds of British bickering fills the room.

“I know what I’m doin’, Charles, and I haven’t messed up yet.”

“‘Yet’ seems to be the key word, here.”

“Oh, come on--”

“That spell was nearly an inch from my head!”

Sara’s just about to snap at them to either shut up or go away when a hand lands on her shoulder, startling her just a little. The smell of cigarette smoke wafts over her, comforting in that weird way that John was. 

“Why don’t you go on,” John tells her. “We’ve got the kids.”

Sara hesitates for a brief second before she decides that John is the best suited to a magical problem anyway, and she shoots off down the hallway after Mick, heart beating wildly in her chest.

There’s only one room, so she wastes no time getting to it, swinging in to find Mick kneeling over a crumpled form in the corner. Len.

Sara rushes to them, falling to her knees beside Mick and reaching for Len’s pulse, knocking Mick’s hands aside. She feels wobbly with relief when she finds one, weak but steady. He’s knocked out like the kids outside, limp and pale, but  _ alive _ . 

“Oh thank  _ God _ ,” she exhales. “ _ Dammit,  _ Len.”

She cups his cheeks in her relief, and sees Mick grab his hand out of the corner of her eye.

It feels strange, suddenly, like when they’d first gotten together. She and Mick only there for Len, at odds with each other and strangely possessive. She has to remind herself that this is only a fight, that she loves Mick and Mick loves her too, but it’s hard, too reminiscent of those awkward stages of their relationship, Len caught in the middle. 

Would they even work without Len?

She instantly banishes the thought, guilt squirming in her stomach. There’d been a lot of guilt back then, too, with all three of them.

“Can you pick him up?” she asks Mick, eager to leave her train of thought behind.

Mick grunts the affirmative and scoops Len into his arms. He doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t wait for her when he leaves, Len in tow.

It’s just like it was in the beginning.

Somehow, impossibly, she feels worse.

-

Sara is at an impasse with Mick when Len wakes up in medbay, John’s revitalizing spell finally taking effect.

They’re sitting on opposite sides of his bed, stubbornly avoiding eye contact. It takes Len less than a minute to pick up on the tension.

“You gave us quite a scare out there,” Sara says softly when he first opens his eyes, threading her fingers through his. “You’re lucky you got out pretty much unscathed.”

Len smirks, giving her hand a squeeze. “What? No lecture?”

“You don’t deserve a lecture,” Mick rumbles, a little too pointedly. There’s a brief pause.

Len furrows his eyebrows, looking between Sara and Mick. “Wow,” he says. “Things that bad without me in the bedroom?”

He’s joking, but Sara has half a mind to just leave him with Mick, stomach churning with anxiety and hurt. Mick beats her to it, standing up without ceremony and marching out, anger clear in his footsteps.

“Jesus,” Sara groans, and she thunks her head down onto Len’s lap. There’s a pause that seems to stretch on for eternity. Sara has just enough time to worry about Len somehow taking Mick’s side even with no information before fingers start combing through her hair, and she collapses the rest of the way onto Len.

She lets him pet her for a little while, ignoring the unspoken question for as long as she can. Feelings  _ suck. _

“Well?” Len asks eventually. Probably a few minutes have passed. “Are you going to tell me why a stupid bedroom joke offended you both so badly?”

“It was a bad joke,” Sara says lamely. “A really bad one.”

“You’ve both made worse.”

Sara tilts her head to say  _ fair enough,  _ and then sighs. “Mick and I had a fight after you were taken.” Len’s fingers still as she continues. “He didn’t follow my orders to stay back, and he tried to run towards you. I pulled him back.” She squeezes her fists, a little afraid that Len would get angry with her. He says nothing, so she continues. “John’s spell was already heading towards the monster, and Mick was about to put himself in the direct line of fire. I also didn’t want to lose  _ both  _ of my partners. Mick,” and she can’t quite keep the anger out of her voice here, “didn’t want to listen to any of that. He just marched straight into the ship and started flinging accusations at me once the rest of us boarded.”

She finds that she’s glad she’s hidden her face in Len’s jeans, because she doesn’t want to repeat this part even to herself. “He - blamed me for the Oculus.” Len’s fingers tighten imperceptibly in her hair. “And I threw the blame right back in his face.”

Len is quiet for a long time. “The Oculus was my fault,” he eventually says, with such finality that Sara knows there’s no point arguing about it. “Don’t - don’t blame  _ each other  _ for that.”

“We haven’t really talked since,” she says.

“Sara,” he says, a little sharply. “This isn’t…  _ new,  _ anymore. You need to be able to talk to Mick.” The  _ on your own  _ is left unsaid, but Sara feels it like a slap to the face.

She sits up in order to look at Len in the face. “Why don’t you go tell him that,” she says bitterly, and she feels like Laurel’s little sister again, stubborn and bratty. The regret and embarrassment must show on her face, because Len doesn’t deign her a response.

“I can’t be the buffer all the time, Sara. You and Mick need to sort this out yourselves. I was told once that a good relationship is based on good communication, and  _ this? _ Ain’t it.”

Sara was the one who’d told him that, back when Mick had returned from Chronos and he and Len hadn’t been talking to each other. The connection shakes some of her insecurities off - this isn’t the only fight that’s happened. It won’t be the last.

This doesn’t mean she suddenly wants to talk to Mick, however.

“You’re just trying to avoid talking to Mick about it,” Sara says, only a little accusing. “You  _ know  _ this is going to be a problem again.”

Len shrugs. “Maybe so. But I’m not the one in a fight with him.”

Sara groans and lets her head fall to his lap again, and she can practically feel him smirking at her. “Pet me,” she orders, after a while of just sitting there and relishing in the fact that Len is  _ alive.  _ “Please,” she adds as an afterthought, and Len huffs a laugh.

“Fine,” he says. “But--”

Sara groans even louder.

“ _ But _ ,” Len says above her. “I need you to promise to talk to Mick. For insurance purposes.”

Sara swallows back another groan. “I promise,” she says, and he starts running his fingers through her hair. She manages to relax, even with the threat of talking to Mick looming over her head.

And it’s not like it’s going to be a fun time for Mick, either.

-

Len persuades her to let him stay in their room rather than medbay (and he only succeeds because his only remaining symptom is exhaustion), and that’s where they find Mick.

He’s sitting on the bed, frowning. He’s looking at his ring.

Sara feels her heart drop a little at the sight of him.

Mick jerks his head up after a few moments as if he hadn’t noticed the door open. “Lenny,” Mick says, standing. He glances at Sara. It’s all the acknowledgment she gets.

“Miss me?” Len asks, smirking. He glances between Sara and Mick. “I think I’m going to take a shower.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sara and Mick say, just slightly out of sync. She looks at him, but he keeps his eyes on Len. She isn’t surprised.

“As much as I’d appreciate the company,” Len says, leering a little at the both of them. “I think you two need a  _ little _ more alone time.”

Sara opens her mouth to protest, to site the fact that Len is still leaning against the doorway for support, but he’s gone within seconds, leaving Sara in the doorframe and Mick on the bed.

They sit in silence for a brief second. “Um,” Sara opens, and Mick makes for the door before she can continue. 

Suddenly, Sara is  _ done _ . Done with avoiding, refusing to apologize first. The  _ awkwardness _ . She’s captain - talks should be her thing. They  _ have  _ to be her thing, now. And maybe Mick and Len could stand to take the initiative every once in a while, but she’s done for now. She’s tired of this.

She catches his arm as he moves past her.

“Wait,” she sighs, and he lets her tug him back into the room. “We should talk.”

“I think we’ve talked enough.” Mick gives her a sarcastic smile and starts for the door again. Sara slams her palm against the sensor before he can even make a full step.

“Gideon,” she says, looking at the ceiling. Determination steels against the fear and discomfort. “Make sure Mick can’t get out until I give the all clear.”

The door locks. “Understood, Captain,” Gideon says, just a little smugly. 

Mick growls, but Sara ignores it. “C’mon,” she says, going over to the bed. She sits, and pats the spot next to her once. “Sit down.”

Mick doesn’t move, instead electing to stare at her from in front of the door. “You’re kidding.”

Sara pushes down her irritation. “I’m not,” she says shortly. “Sit  _ down. _ ”

“I’m fine here, thanks,” Mick says, giving her another sarcastic smile, and she smiles back at him.

“Fine,” she says. “But we have to talk.”

“Since when,” Mick barks. Sara gives him a look.

“Since we started dating.” Her voice is sharp. She softens it. “We said a lot of things, Mick. We need to clear the air.”

“The air’s fine.”

Sara lets out a breath, imagining her irritation coming out with it. She doesn’t want another argument, which means she’s gonna have to man up. She’s going to have to  _ apologize first. _

The idea makes her shudder.

“ _ Please,  _ sit down,” she asks instead of apologizing. Her slight desperation must bleed through, because Mick’s face softens imperceptibly. He sits down.

Sara takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she says, and Mick  _ finally _ looks her in the eye. She meets his gaze confidently. “What I said was… uncalled for.” She smiles a little. “Maybe even  _ mean. _ ”

Mick turns his head to look at the door again, and Sara reminds herself not to take offense. These were  _ feelings  _ they were dealing with, after all. “I started it,” he says, after a while. “I’d call it even.”

Sara takes his hand, and he lets her. “Alright,” she says slowly, more than a little relieved but not quite willing to show it. She imagines that Mick feels the same - Len would be able to read him better than she can. “Can we - can we talk about what we said?”

“We don’t need to,” Mick says quickly. Sara is tempted to agree.

“I think we do,” she says. He growls, low in his throat, and Sara rolls her lips between her teeth. This is  _ so _ incredibly awkward.

“Do you really blame me?” she says, after a long moment. Her voice is quiet, but the room is quiet too.

“No,” Mick says, far too quickly to be a lie. “‘Course not.” Something lifts off of her chest.

“Thank god,” she mutters, before looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t blame you, either. There’s nobody to blame.”

“But there is,” Mick says, just as quietly. “Isn’t there?”

She stares at him for a moment. “Maybe,” she says. “But he didn’t have a lot of choice, either.”

Mick laughs, but it’s bitter. “Exactly,” he says. “I can’t get mad at him, even though I am, because  _ I _ would have been the dead one. If he hadn’t….” He trails off, and Sara grabs his chin and jerks his face towards hers.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, more fiercely than even  _ she’d _ been expecting. “You’re not allowed to say that. We all made our choices that night. And  _ look  _ \- everything’s turned out for the better despite it.”

Mick is silent for a long time, and Sara eventually lets go of his face. They return to staring at the door together. “S’not your fault,” Mick says suddenly. “Either, I mean.”

“I know,” she says, but relief and warmth unfurl in her chest. She did know, but it felt good to hear. That she wasn’t blamed by anyone, not even herself.

Their silence is interrupted by the sound of Gideon unlocking the door, but neither of them move. After a moment, Sara swings herself all the way onto the bed, laying down. It feels  _ amazing. _

“C’mere,” she says to Mick, patting the bed. “Let’s wait for Len and give him a good talking to when he comes back.”

Mick joins her, presses his shoulder to hers, and she revels in the camaraderie of it. “You know,” Sara says, confident after the emotional minefield they’d just waded through. “We’re gonna have to talk about the following orders thing.”

Mick grunts. Sara takes it as an agreement.

“I missed you,” she teases, but there’s truth in it. 

Mick grunts. Sara takes it as an agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr to freak out about LOT at @madprinceofdenmark!


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